The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
by Sheryl Holmes
Summary: If he was the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, she was the Deep Blue Sea. There was depth a man could drown in, the chaos of her mind and soul…aside from those fitting metaphors, Jessica Jones drank enough to fill an ocean. Between them hang distrust, alliance, and the fate of a city. Jessica Jones/Matthew Murdock, Jones/Daredevil. Language Advisory. Slowburn.
1. Lightning Strikes Maybe 1x, Maybe 2x

**Lightning Strikes Maybe Once, Maybe Twice**

 _I_

At the same time Matthew Murdock was making his way to confessional early one September morning, Jessica Jones sat on the edge of her desk on the other side of Hell's Kitchen, rounding off her long-night-come-morning with another swig straight from the bottle.

Her eyes scrolled up and down the page on her laptop. She hated these kinds of cases. The kind that got her mixed up in things that were bigger than just some poor schmuck's crumbling marriage. The kind that involved either thinking while sober or thinking whilst really, _really_ drunk. The kind that almost required her to give a damn.

Matthew Murdock swallowed. So much for the wagon. He'd fallen off it ass-first. He didn't want to think of it as an addiction because he knew he'd done it to the betterment of Justice, all that was Good and Right, et cetera, et cetera. But he also knew that's not the primary reason he did it. It was an addiction because, whether it benefited others or not, he got off on it. And _that_ was why he did it. Not on the merit of its virtues. Not for his principles. Not for the helpless. No; he did it for his own adrenaline high.

He fought back the curse working its way up his throat as he remembered he was in a church. He sighed heavily. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

"Fuck," Jessica supplied. She threw the glass bottle, aiming for the waste basket. It made it (this time) but created an audible crash as it collided with another empty bottle (or several.) Unperturbed, she jumped down from her perch and ran her fingers through her hair.

More than fifty-five million people die every year around the world. God only knew how many died in Hell's Kitchen during that time. But Jessica Jones knew at least ten did. In the pool of millions, ten were connected. It was intimate yet unobservable. In the past year, ten people who didn't know one another died under the same bizarre circumstances. Four women, six men. Aged seventeen through sixty-four. Three white, three black, two Latino, one Asian, one Native American. Overweight, underweight, bodybuilder. Tall, short, tall, tall, short. Didn't go to the same restaurants, churches, bars, or book clubs. Never crossed paths, never had a conversation that anyone knew of. Probably had never even breathed the same air. Ten bodies, ten grieving families. And fuck if Jessica knew why, but one of those families thought to call her. One of those families wanted answers the folks in blue couldn't give. And now Jessica was staring at ten opened tabs with names that she couldn't link, wondering how she always ended up with the crazy shit in her lap. It was probably Malcolm's fault, she mused as she paced the floor. He always reminded her of her moral responsibility or some shit. She should probably start calling him Jiminy Cricket and tell him to stop changing her goddamn lock.

"How long has it been since you've been to confessional?"

"One week, Father," Murdock whispered.

"What was your sin, my child?"

"I did it again. I…fought again."

"And you feel guilty for it?"

"Yes, Father. I promised those I love that I was done. That I would stop, let the police handle things. But…it…it _called_ to me last night."

"Again?"

Matthew took a deep breath and slumped his shoulders. "Yes, Father. Again."

" _Who_ called this time?"

"A woman. She was screaming. A mugger."

"And you saved her?"

"Yes."

"I'm failing to see your sin, Matthew."

Matt growled in frustration and gestured violently around him—a gesture neither he nor his priest could fully see. "I'm doing it for the wrong _reasons_."

"You may be motivated by the 'wrong' reasons, but would you do it if it didn't help people?"

"No, I wouldn't," he conceded. Then, quieter: "But I would want to."

The police didn't know what they were dealing with. Neither did Jess. Ten bodies, killed in public areas—alleyways, Central Park, the subway. Throats opened—not slit, opened. Blood everywhere, but not enough. Jess imagined holes in jugular veins, someone siphoning the blood out then stepping away to let the victim finish bleeding to death. Without the unconfirmable detail that blood was TAKEN and not just MISSING (i.e., coroner's reports that theorize the murderer got the missing half-pint or so of each vic's blood on her/his clothes) no one really cared about seemingly unconnected deaths that feature murder by icepick/knife/unknown weapon ( _Coroners are full of shit,_ Jess thought.) Sick and uncomfortable to think about, but not particularly salacious. Not lurid enough to garner notice by the media, especially over a prolonged period. Some detective thought it a serial killer, but his supervisor didn't agree. Too much NOT in common. Too much unknown. It almost looked random.

Jessica didn't believe in random.

"You are in a unique position to help people. Regardless of how you feel about it, Matthew, you help Hell's Kitchen. Violence is sinful. Saving people is not. If you do it for the former and not the latter reason, perhaps I wouldn't see you here so often."

Matt nodded slowly. "Thank you, Father." He began to rise.

"Remember Esther, Matthew. 'For who knows but that you have come to this position for such a time as this?'"

Over his shoulder, Matt scoffed. "The first part of that verse says deliverance would arise from another place without her."

"Yes. It would have. And this city would go on without a horned Devil roaming its alleys at night." Matt heard the priest pause, probably for dramatic effect. "But Esther was reminded of her position to save the Jews not necessarily for the Jews' sake, but for hers. Her fate was to save them. If she denied that fate, they would still be delivered, but Esther would have deprived herself of that responsibility. Have you thought, Matthew, that this might be for the good of your soul as well as for Hell's Kitchen if you could _change_ your reasons?"

He didn't respond to the question. He thanked the priest and left, knowing the old man was smirking as he evaded the query.

Matthew Murdock wasn't even sure he believed in fate.

 _II_

Eyes, unmoving, unseeing, stared out across the concrete jungle. Sounds, textures, sonic fabric surrounded him.

He didn't have to be here tonight. He could be out drinking with Foggy, trying to mend what he'd broken by doing the very thing he was flirting with right now. He could be visiting Karen. But they'd know. They'd either smell the danger on him like a cheap cologne or see the cuts in his knuckles.

This truth didn't sway him. He was at his perch, on the edge of a building and a revelation. He was close to understanding something. Some epiphany nudged the back of his mind. There was something he wanted, needed to know about himself. Elektra had prodded this part of him, lured it out and played with it. She tried to unleash it, but never quite succeeded. All the parts of Matthew were held back by his desire to suppress this part of him—this part that most reminded him of his father in the ring. It was the opposite of discipline. It was kinetic energy. It was Matthew Murdock's essence. No principles or rules to filter it through.

It was passion, unadulterated.

It was what most frightened him about himself.

Nights like these he needed to breathe in the night air and convince himself he had it under control.

But in the distance, he heard a scream and knew tonight would not be the night he kept the demon in its cage; he'd summon the devil tonight and hate himself in the morning.

 _III_

Jessica woke to sound of screams outside her bedroom/office/whatever window.

 _Fuck_ was she not in the mood for this.

She'd better get up and do something about it—if not for her own sleep, at least for Malcolm's outsourced conscience.

Jess rolled off her bed, still fully dressed and smelling strongly of last night's—tonight's?—whiskey binge (A.K.A. "dinner.") She quickly shuffled across the floor, pulled on her boots, and jogged for the stairwell.

 _IV_

Well, this wasn't normal. Not that crimes were supposed to be "normal" but usually they were at least predictable. Rape, murder, robbery. But…was that guy brandishing a _syringe?_ Matt couldn't tell. The stick was too thick to be a normal syringe. But it was definitely a needle-like object attached to a container of some kind. The woman had stopped screaming by the time he got there. He had caught the sound of her head hitting the side of the dumpster in the alley and knew she was out. He could still hear her heartbeat, though, and he hoped to keep it that way.

"Hey!"

The man whirled around, eyes falling on the suit-and-tie figure that growled from the opening of the alleyway. The syringe was already in the woman's throat. _Shit, what now?_ Maybe Matt should've expected it, but suddenly the man (whose face was covered by a ski mask) was scaling the wall of the cul de sac, making for the roof of the building closing him in.

 _Two choices, Matt. Go after the bad guy or save the girl._

Footsteps. Behind him. Strong, running. _Saves me the trouble._ Matt took off after the man. Whoever the owner of those feet was had better call an ambulance, fast.

 _V_

 _What. The. Fuck._

"No. No, no, no," Jess repeated like a mantra. She got down on her knees, fetched her phone from her jacket pocket, and stared at the quickly-filling supersized syringe draining the woman's throat and any moment about to overflow. Was she supposed to take it out? Put pressure on it? Jess wondered if she'd stop bleeding when the syringe was full. Didn't normal syringes do that? This didn't even look medical-grade. It looked like a homemade torture device. It was as thick as a banana and long as a soda bottle. It didn't sport measurement marks on the side. It looked like handblown glass.

"Hello? Yes, send an ambulance, I've got a woman here with a syringe in her throat—Yes, I said a _syringe,_ lady, you heard me the first time!"

The syringe overflowed. Blood seeped out, hemorrhaging from the jugular. Well, that answered _that_ question.

"Fuck," she swore, trying to stop the bleeding by tucking her scarf around the opening. The syringe was still in the woman's neck but Jessica didn't dare pull it out. In the distance, she heard sirens.


	2. Emotional Anesthetic

**Emotional Anesthetic**

 _I_

This was _not_ how she'd hoped to figure out how these people were dying. Jessica dragged herself into her apartment—office, whatever. Malcolm was already in her kitchen.

"Holy shit, you look terrible."

"Thanks," she responded. The cops had taken her scarf for evidence, but the rest of her clothes were still on and still soaked in blood. The stranger was in a coma. Not dead. That was always a good day—when someone _didn't_ die for once.

"Uh…do you want me to make you some coffee?"

"No thanks." She pulled a bottle out of her desk drawer. She didn't even stop to look at the label. She just needed an emotional anesthetic.

"Are you going to tell me how you got covered in blood?" The "this time" was implied by his tone.

"No." She tilted the bottle back and practically chugged.

"Right…," Malcolm muttered and started to pick up trash from the floor. Jessica watched him from the chair at her desk, her eyes haggard but still laden with her trademark aggravation.

She lazily tugged a pad of paper toward her, grabbing a pen from beside her laptop. In her peripheral vision, she saw Malcolm pause to watch her. As she began to jot notes down, he made a beeline to hover over her shoulder.

 **Brunette**

 **Asian descent**

 **5'4"**

 **~180 lbs**

 **Well-dressed (professional)**

 **Mid 20s-Mid 30s**

 **Esme Kim**

"How did you get her name?"

"Sneaked a look at the detective's notes before leaving the precinct."

Malcolm's eyes drifted to the other names he hadn't seen listed on the pad when he came in that afternoon. Ten other people had their own lists sporadically scribbled across the page.

"Okay, are you going to tell me what this is all for?" Malcolm finally asked.

Jessica looked sarcastically pensive. Then: "No."

She stood up, turned the pad over, and made her way to the bed.

"Leave the key on the desk on your way out," she griped half-heartedly as she collapsed, bloodied, exhausted, and not buzzed enough for her own liking, onto her mattress. She knew he wouldn't and secretly she liked it that way. She heard him huff in maternal frustration as she drifted to sleep.

 _II_

He'd lost him. He didn't want to admit it, but those months of not wearing the suit had not done his reflexes any good. And since he hadn't planned to go out tonight, he hadn't worn that suit at all—he wasn't exactly prepared for a fight. His side ached.

Matt was damn good at fighting but the masked bastard had gotten a good kick in to his ribcage on the drop-off of the rooftop. He'd barely been able to grab for the fire escape on his way down. At that point, disoriented, in pain, and clinging for dear life to a rickety metal structure, he'd lost even the auditory tracks of the man's footsteps. He was gone.

When Matt found his way back up to the top of the roof, he turned and ran as fast as he could back to the scene of the crime. He didn't think there was anything there that could help him learn what the hell had gone down but he had to at least know what became of the woman.

Over the side of the building as he approached he could already sense the lights, hear the rush of the medics, feel their urgency. He edged closer.

That's when he felt her.

He smelled the woman's blood all over her. This was the owner of the footsteps. The woman who came to the rescue.

There was alcohol in her aura, if that's what you wanted to call it. Matt could practically taste the whiskey on his tongue. She had a lazy stature—like she'd dealt with death and blood before and was, for lack of a better phrase, _over it._ Her heartbeat belied that nonchalance; it was beating fast and hard. She was worried for the woman and her body was poised for a fight. Matt knew that feeling, knew that physical response. After a time, the body begins to read the smell and sight of blood not as a signal for fear but for combat. He wondered what could turn this woman—this thin, recalcitrant alcoholic—into an intuitive fighter.

Matt knew he should leave now, get out before someone noticed a man in a suit with a makeshift mask over his eyes crouched on an apartment roof. But he stayed. He lingered. He listened.

He could hear her voice now, through the fog of a thousand other distractors.

"I found her, you're saving her, I'm done. You have my statement."

"It doesn't work that way, Ms. Jones. You need to come down to the precinct."

"Why? Do you think _I_ stabbed her in the neck with a comically large syringe then called the cops on myself? Sorry, I'm not that imaginative." God, this one was full of snark. Matt tilted his head to hear better. Eventually, they got her to go to the station. Begrudgingly.

As the scene began to calm, Matt stole away.

In the sanctuary of his loft, he lowered himself into a chair, favoring his right side. He was going to have a nasty bruise in the morning. The room was silent (or as silent as it could be for a man such as he.) He chewed on his thoughts.

A comically large syringe, huh? That's what he'd sensed, as well, but he couldn't tell for certain.

Who would want to take anyone's blood like that? And, if his senses were correct, when he kicked the man in his stomach, he heard a second (or maybe even third) syringe shatter in his hoodie pocket. Either that was all for the same woman or those syringes were reserved for more victims. There were some sickos in New York, no doubt, but this was a new one for him.

He hoped it wasn't vampires. First zombie ninjas, now vampire parkour athletes.

That would be just his luck.

 _III_

"Vampires?" Trish offered.

Jess scoffed. "No. Not vampires. No bite marks," she rolled her eyes. "I didn't even see who did it. I just happened upon the body. Weird thing is, I didn't even see anyone run out of the alley. I almost wondered if she stabbed herself."

Trish sipped her latte as they made their way down the busy sidewalk. Neither was worried what anyone would think if they overheard a word or two; no one ever cared what was said in NYC. Everybody was too absorbed in the rush of his or her own life.

"But obviously she didn't. So any other theories?"

"Had to have climbed. Don't know many who could've done it and as fast as they did. And those bricks aren't exactly easy to latch onto."

"Why do you think they left? That's not what happened to the other victims. Do you think they heard you coming?"

"No," Jess shook her head. "I wasn't being quiet but I wasn't loud, either. I would've at least seen them finish the climb if they'd heard me before deciding to make their way up."

"So…they were interrupted." Trish stopped at the doorway to her apartment building.

Jess nodded, her black hair curtaining her pale face, eyes wide and intense. "Yeah, but who did the interrupting?"

Trish paused, raising a well-groomed eyebrow. "What, you think two athletes scrambled up the wall behind your apartment following an attempted blood-robbery?"

Jess shrugged. "When I come up with a better theory, I'll give you a call." She tucked her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket and began to saunter away. She heard Trish heave a sigh before the revolving door signaled she'd entered the building.

 _IV_

Matt stepped down the steps of the courthouse. He had hoped to run into Foggy in there, even if only briefly. Sometimes that happened; he caught a whiff of him or the hint that he was just around the corner. He never made his presence known but he was always glad to be near. Matt didn't know what to call it but if it were possible to miss someone's energy, he missed Foggy's. He hadn't felt it today and that disappointed him as much as his disappointment ashamed him. He even contemplated calling Karen. God, he was pathetic when he was lonely, he grimaced to himself. Sometimes he wished he could just shut the ache _off, dammit._

He began a slow trek to his home, forgoing the usual cab in favor of taking the time to think to himself.

Then, all at once, there it was. No…there _she_ was.

Familiar yet still new. She was walking on her own, just a block away.

Matt told himself to keep going straight. _Keep walking,_ he told himself.

He heard the swagger of her steps. She walked like the owner of a jaded mind.

 _Go home_ , he growled at his own mind. Contrary, his feet slowed.

He couldn't smell the alcohol this time but he somehow knew she couldn't be completely sober. For Matt, alcoholism smelled the way chain-smoking smelled to most people; the drug of choice seemed to seep out of the skin if the user had done it long enough. For this woman, when he'd encountered her, she smelled of different shades of liquor. Half of that scent seemed to emanate directly from her clothes, washed though they may have been. Her breath was hardly the only indication of long-term dependence.

Matt lingered, his steps matching hers but at a more leisurely (uncertain) pace. She'd walked into a less populated part of the neighborhood. She was alone, not counting Matt. And then she wasn't.

Muffled, distant, he heard a voice and a second heartbeat join hers.

"…any clues?" It was a kind voice. Open. Gentle, caring, and eager.

"What are you doing, following me? I thought you only bothered me in my apartment," she snapped back.

"No, I was just coming back from something and saw you. Are you going to answer my question? I can tell when you're on a case."

"Why do you care?"

"Maybe I can help."

"First off, no, you can't. Second, why would you want to?" Deadpan. Hardly even a question so much as a lack of belief framed by annoyance.

"Because I care about you. I don't like seeing you come home covered in blood."

"Yeah, well, screw off. Go do…whatever it is you _do_ lately."

"I work at a shelter helping drug addicts get clean and—"

"I didn't _ask_ , I just said go _do it._ "

"Jessica…," Malcom's voice intoned, exasperated.

 _Jessica? That's her name…_ Matt groaned to himself. This wasn't right. He shouldn't be eavesdropping on her conversations. _Go home, Murdock._ He tapped his foot once. But he only hesitated a moment. Then, abruptly, he was folding up his stick and heading straight for the sound of their voices. _I guess I'll add 'Stalking Strangers' to my list of sins to confess to this week_ , he thought bitterly.

He made his way to the alleyway adjacent to their positions, this "Malcolm" and the woman— _Jessica,_ Matt repeated to himself.

She stopped walking. "What."

"What's the harm in telling me?" Malcolm asked.

"Fuck, fine," she growled. "You want to help? Help me figure out what the hell a plumber, a college student, a waitress, a secretary, and a whole list of others would have in common. While you're at it, tell me what gets somebody killed by _blood theft._ " Frustrated by her own limited progress on the case, her tone was biting.

 _There are others?_ Matt leaned into the alley wall further. This wasn't what he expected. What did this woman know? And how?

"Blood theft?"

"The blood I had on me the other night? Some lady got stabbed in the jugular by a syringe—or something like it. Bled all over my favorite scarf." She managed to sound thoroughly pissed by this inconvenience. "Didn't die, though, unlike the others, who were left to leak like the pipe in my bathroom."

"Okay—not liking the metaphor, but I get the point. How many have you found?"

"Ten. Eleven now."

 _TEN others?_ Matt shifted closer to the opening of the alleyway. Their fire-figures, courtesy of his heightened senses, were just beyond the corner. Jessica's arms were crossed and Malcolm was standing, arms hanging at his sides.

"Make that twelve."

"What?" Her arms dropped, her head tilting forward.

"Over at the shelter, one of my guys stopped coming. John Clover. We called him Lucky. Turns out he was found a couple blocks away near the docks. Cops thought he'd gone wonky and stabbed _himself_ in the neck with one of his own needles. Except the wound was too big and they couldn't find the stick at the scene. But, I mean…"

"But who ever gave a damn about a dead junkie?" Jessica finished for him.

"Yeah," Malcom said. His voice was dejected, depressed.

Jessica was silent for a minute.

"I was wrong," she said finally, turning away quickly and walking the opposite direction. "You _are_ helpful."

Matt stayed put until she was further down the street.

"Thanks, I guess," he heard Malcolm murmur after her.


	3. White Collar Minefield

**White Collar Minefield**

I

Foggy could feel it like a splinter under his nail. It was there, definitely there, but no method of inspection could reveal its presence and no amount of picking at it could remove it. No, it wasn't a lingering feeling. It was a nagging, annoying, aggravating…

"Oh, the hell with it," he grumbled in frustration. His hands met the desk loudly as he roughly raised himself up, taking his emotions out on the rather expensive office furniture. There were papers scattered everywhere and boxes of files next to his chair. He stumbled over a precariously-arranged stack of papers, which consequently went tumbling with a swoosh. He caught his balance on the corner of the cherry wood desk before continuing his trek past the paperwork, cursing as he went. When he'd cleared the rest of his self-made white collar minefield, he made a beeline for the door and tore his coat down from the rack standing next to it—a rack that didn't deserve the abuse he gave it in his struggle to free his apparel.

Finally, beige overcoat apprehended and thoroughly tamed, Foggy proceeded to rummage through the breast pockets until, triumphantly, his hand emerged with its prize: his phone.

It rang. And rang. And rang.

At last, a breathless voice coughed from the other side of the line.

"Foggy?"

"Hey, you want to go drinking?"

"Foggy—now? It's late, past midnight."

"Well, I was working late and since you're clearly up, too…"

Matt hesitated. "I'm about to crash right now, actually. Could I take a raincheck?"

Foggy's eyes fell shut. His gut lurched with a certain kick. "Yeah, sure. Maybe this weekend?"

"Perfect. Josie's? Round 10 on Saturday?"

"It's a date, pal."

"Night, Foggy."

"Like a parody of a Vincent Van Gogh painting," was Foggy's witty reply. He heard Matt chuckle before the line went dead. The smile he'd put into his voice now faded from his face.

He knew it. He fucking _knew_ it.

He'd always had a gut instinct about Matt—especially when Matt was lying. Some lies had slipped past before due to circumstances or blind (no pun intended) trust—things like _Who would pretend to be totally blind?_ or _Why does he have a limp if he stayed home last night?_ These things slipped past, but the sensation was always there. Part of Foggy was angrier at himself after learning the truth than he was at Matt because, frankly, he'd been fooling himself into believing the shit fibs Matt would regularly feed him. The fact was, part of him knew, even before Matt was forced to tell him. So, tonight and every night after Matt's deceit had been unveiled, Foggy told himself he'd listen to his damn gut.

And that's what he'd done tonight, hoping against hope that he was wrong.

But it was like a damn splinter under his nail. He'd just _had to call,_ hadn't he? Foggy berated himself, wishing he'd just left it alone.

He heard the lie in Matt's voice. It seemed the devout Catholic couldn't disguise it anymore; maybe the guilt had lost him his edge because Foggy didn't have even the slightest doubt that Matt had just lied through his teeth. Matt wasn't at home, about to sleep. He wasn't anywhere near a bed unless maybe he had a Russian mobster tied to it and was trying to get information on the neighborhood gun-running operation. Foggy groaned bitterly.

Matt was back at it.

 _God, why am I always right?_ Foggy cursed his luck as he quickly shrugged on his coat and shut his frosted glass office door behind him: F. P. NELSON, J.D. etched itself out of the glow of the lamp he'd left on.

Making his way quickly through the halls, he dialed another number and got on the elevator.

II

The coffee wasn't working.

Arlene bit her lip. Being the assistant to a radio talk show host was stressful most days, but her boss usually had an attitude that made things somehow more palatable. A caller cussed on-air? Trish somehow always knew when it was coming and her face told Arlene to drop the call ASAP. Tech malfunction? Trish vamped until the problem was fixed, never missing a beat. The higher-ups were being douches? Trish would take the call and put them in their place— _kindly_. It seemed some days that even when everything was falling apart and Trish just _couldn't_ fix it this time, somehow she found a way to grin through the frenzy and the discord and just _make things better._

But…not today.

Because today Patricia Walker of _TrishTalk_ had the migraine to end all migraines. And the coffee wasn't working.

Arlene sat at the board, wondering what she could possibly do from this position to help Trish through today. The conversations weren't going well. Trish was squinting against the onslaught of the bright studio lights. The Excedrin hadn't observably alleviated the agony at all. She could hardly seem to focus, even with her notes in hand. And she so rarely needed her notes for her show to begin with; she was amazing like that, Arlene thought. And Arlene hated that a migraine could nearly put her powerhouse of a boss out of commission.

Arlene bit her lip harder. The caller was getting aggressive about something. This really was a shit day. Trish opened her mouth to settle him down, when she froze.

Arlene leaned forward, hand poised to adjust the levels or cut off the caller if need be. She watched her face for a cue.

But the cue never came.

Trish's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed off her chair.

There was a moment—just a single moment—of dead air, a moment embodied by dread and panic. And then Arlene cut the show and rushed through the glass door, the body of her beloved boss seizing inexplicably and uncontrollably on the carpet.

As the ambulance sped through the city, elevator music filled the time and airwaves which otherwise would have been occupied by Trish Walker's voice.

III

He liked this work much better.

Yes, he'd worked in well-furnished office buildings, in cramped ugly cubicles, and of course, later, in pristine white sterile labs—but even in this dingy and comparatively unimpressive warehouse, he preferred this work.

It was necessary. Fulfilled real purpose. And it made great use of his skills—skills which were woefully underutilized at all his past employments.

The blood drip-dropped into an awaiting phial beneath it, filling partway and seeping into some substance coating the bottom of the glass. His gloved fingers capped the tube and shook it, watching the contents turn blue, then green in the dim fluorescent light of his makeshift laboratory.

He smiled as it settled on a deep purple hue. Yes. He liked this job _very_ much.


	4. Darkness, Within as Without

**_A/N: Hello, my darlings. I've been busy as of late, but I churned this sucker out for ya'll in the wee small hours of the morning. I hope you like it. And to all those reviewing, thank you for indulging my ego! (No, but seriously, I really appreciate reviews. Much love.)_**

 **Darkness, Within as Without**

I

The empty bottom of the bottle made a hollow, curt chime as it collided with Josie's sticky bar top. Matthew focused on the sound. He did his best to remain impassive, his face a careful mask. _Give nothing away._

"…Maybe I'm paranoid, but at this point we have a right to be! You don't have the best track record for telling us when shit's going down. I'm worried about you, man. So is Karen. Right, Kare?"

Karen nodded to Matt's left. "If anything happened to you—if you ended up somewhere hurt and alone, without help…" The sentence trailed off, unfinished. Her face was one of concern, but also disappointment. Judgement. She was only there because Foggy had convinced her to come, Matt knew. He wished Foggy had left well enough alone. She never had understood. Part of Matt wanted to hate her for that but another, deeper part hated _himself_ for what she despised in him. And she _did_ despise it; she hated the Devil in him as much as she had nearly loved the man. That made things tough for both of them. She wanted him to be someone he couldn't be and he wished she could understand something she wasn't programmed to comprehend—or simply chose _not to._

Matt smiled genially, betraying none of his torrential thoughts. He knew his smile was charming, convincing. But he also knew these two individuals, of all the people in his life, had learned the hard way how to see through his thin disguises.

"Guys, you're overreacting. I just had a bad night. Nothing happened. I just drank a bit too much." God, he hoped his face looked as convincing as his voice sounded.

"What, suddenly you can't hold your liquor?" Foggy asked incredulously. "C'mon, Matt, I went to college with you. I know how much your Irish blood can take."

Matt chuckled. "First of all…that's a little racist, Foggy. Second…," Matt hesitated. If he didn't want them to conclude that he was, in fact, in the suit again, he could at least compromise with a half-truth. He sighed. "I got drunk because I was feeling…a little down."

Karen was startled. "You're telling us you got drunk on your own because you were _depressed?"_

"Shocking, isn't it?" Matt quipped dryly. He gratefully reached out his hand to a second bottle of beer as it landed on the counter in front of him.

"'We'll take him to Josie's' you said. 'It'll be good for him!'" Karen mimicked Foggy under her breath.

"I didn't know he'd turned to alcohol!" Foggy hissed back from Matt's right side.

"You guys _do know_ I'm sitting in-between you, right? I can hear you," he grinned good-naturedly. "Besides, it was one time. It's not like I'm getting drunk every night and waking up with a horrendous hangover as a rule." Unbidden, the thought of a mysterious woman and the scent of whisky floated through his mind. He mentally shook it off and continued with the lie. "Foggy just caught me on a bad night. No need for you guys to stage a half-assed intervention."

Foggy gasped, seemingly appalled. "Half-assed?!"

"We _did_ do it at Josie's, Fog," Karen conceded.

Foggy pretended to think a moment. The room was a dimly-lit, cliché of a dive. Clacks of collisions and rolling balls sounded from the nearby pool table. Amber lighting, the faint stench of bleach masking vomit, and the hiss of a barely-functioning heater in the far corner set the mood. Foggy glanced around and then, with a sigh, nodded in reluctant agreement. Yeah, they could've picked a better place.

"Why _did_ you pick Josie's?" Matt asked.

"Public," Foggy replied, but didn't elaborate. Matt could read between the lines—or, in this case, the lack thereof. They wanted it to be somewhere that the three of them wouldn't get into a shouting match over Matt's lies. A public place kept them from making a scene but allowed for enough interaction to give Karen and Foggy their soapbox from which to preach to him. Matt tried not to resent them for metaphorically tying his hands behind his back, tried not to resent them for setting up a situation where they could freely lecture him with their concerns but he could give no solid rebuttal without exposing his secrets to prying ears. He tried not to resent them for this. He failed.

It was hard not to resent Foggy when he smelled like hair gel, when Matt knew his hair was cut like a Lawyer—as if his position at a corporate firm now required spelling with a capital L—when he could smell the cologne that was once above his paycheck, could hear the scratch of his new, expensive cufflinks drag across the counter like a Lamborghini might drag on cracked asphalt. It was hard not to feel like a brushed-aside ex who was left with all the bruising memories while the other person moved on with his newer, shinier life. It wasn't that Matt was jealous of Foggy for having success; he was jealous of success for having Foggy.

Karen, on the other hand, just smelled of Karen. It was her, just as she was, with just a hint of ink added to the usual mélange of cherry blossom shampoo, jasmine lotion, and vanilla lip balm. Her fragrance was that of a floral arrangement with a rolled newspaper stuck in the center. Matt let himself meditate on the scent. He missed it, but now it was changed _just enough_ to remind him that it wasn't quite Karen anymore, not His Karen, not the Old Karen. This was a new, standoffish Karen who carefully navigated her surroundings when he was in the room so as not to so much as brush against his hand when reaching for her drink. This New Karen spoke less, didn't openly study his face the way she had when she believed he wouldn't be able to tell. This New Karen exemplified all the numerous ways in which Matt Murdock had royally fucked up.

For a moment, each barfly drank her or his poison of choice. Then Foggy set his glass down. It made a sound that reminded Matt strongly of a judge's gavel.

"Listen…if you _are_ back at it…," he took a deep breath, "you can tell us, Matt." _(No, I can't.)_ "We just don't want you getting hurt," he murmured, studying Matt's profile.

Matt only paused with the bottle to his lips and cracked a smirk—a smirk he didn't feel in the slightest, that felt like a scar on his numb and lying lips—as if he found it funny that his friends worried too much for his well-being. Then, he drank deep and gave no reply.

Behind them in the darkened corner of the bar, a shadow watched.

II

Jessica's cynicism was as close to sympathy as she was capable of showing Malcolm. She knew it hit hard for him, a former addict (though initially by force), knowing an addicted friend's death meant nothing to the police. And she had tried her best to convey—well, the closest thing to compassion she could manage. Maybe Malcolm knew that or maybe he didn't. He was the kind who only seemed to understand emotions; a person who shunned feelings was a bit harder for him to grasp. He got that she suppressed emotion, but he never quite got the _why_ nor was he all that great at respecting her corresponding boundaries. He always wanted to know how she was _feeling_ or how something shitty was _affecting_ her. _Fuck that_ , she thought. Finally, he'd given her something she could _use._ Sympathy and concern didn't do much in the way of help in Jessica's line of work. But a lead? She'd take that any day of the week.

The mission that Malcolm worked at doubled as a rehab center for junkies. Jessica would never admit it to him, but she knew everything about this place. Whatever one might call her relationship with Malcolm was an unusual (and unusually persuasive) bond. She supposed it had something to do with the fact that they'd both experienced the hell of Kilgrave's mind prison. Or maybe it was because Malcolm had a heart for strays. Or because _she_ had a heart for strays (not that she'd ever admit that to herself.) But, as much as she liked to give him the opposite impression, she cared about what happened to him. And, call it paranoia, but she liked to know where he was when he wasn't haunting her office/apartment like an all-too-talkative ghost.

"Can I help you?" The desk clerk looked up, his head in a case file. He was trying to get the copy of a birth certificate of a vagrant from an uncooperative hospital in Illinois. Hands still poised on the keyboard mid-sentence in an email tirade, he did a quick once-over of the woman in front of him. She was in her leather jacket and blue plaid, the dark shades of her unofficial uniform contrasting sharply with the ugly drunk-tank pink of the mission office. Her eyes were tired and bloodshot. The clerk's eye's drifted to the clock over her shoulder: it was nearly 6p.m. Then: "The AA meetings are down the hall to the right."

She pulled a face. "I'm not here for the AA meetings." She seemed to reassess her approach, her face adjusting into a parody of politeness. "I'd—like to volunteer."

It made for an odd night.

She went home with a mission T-shirt ("Help the Helples!" it declared on the front, typo and all) covered in chili and soup. But by the end, she'd asked (or grilled) just about everyone at the mission about John Clover.

One conversation in particular had been of help.

Around 7p.m., she'd claimed she was taking a "smoke break", which the shift director said was off-limits on the mission grounds, sending her out back into an alley. As she suspected, nearly a dozen homeless men and women hung outside, nursing cigarettes.

A few eyed her cautiously, but when she made no move to rat them out, they relaxed. Jessica's eyes fell to a man standing several yards away. One of his hands was tucked into his coat, the worse for wear. He was clearly hiding something stronger than tobacco, but who was Jessica to fault any man for his vices? Hell, she'd practically let Malcolm burn himself alive with that shit and did nothing until he got in her way… _Isn't this shelter supposed to help people get clean? I wonder if he's selling to the other patients…_

She set that thought aside for the moment, and sidled up to a guy dressed in a loud yellow shirt and, inexplicably, overalls. It matched the description some lady named Hera ( _Was that her real name?_ ) gave her of Lucky's best friend.

"Hey, you Juan?"

"Who's asking?" he said, grinning. He had the face of a jokester, thinly covered by a patchy greying beard.

Jessica snorted. "I'll buy you another pack of Marlboros if you can help me out." He looked interested, but wary.

"I'm clean, so if you're trying to find a dealer…" He shook his head.

She interrupted. "I'm not looking for drugs, man. I'm trying to find out anything you know about John Clover."

He perked up. "Lucky?"

"Yeah. I heard about what happened to him and…," she hesitated.

"It's shitty, lady," he nodded, taking another drag. The dude had to be six-foot-five. The smoke went straight over her head. "The cops didn't even care."

"Yeah, that sucks," she said. She meant it, but she thought her voice probably didn't convey that very well. "Was he a good guy?"

"Great guy. I mean, other than hanging with me, he was kind of a loner. But when you got to know him, he was real nice. Would give you the shirt off his back, even if that was all he had. Except," he added as an afterthought, "when he was on the junk, you know. Lucky on heroin was a mean fucker, but just about everyone is wonky on that shit."

"Do you think his dealer did it? The cops thought it had something to do with what happened to him."

Juan shook his head. "Fuck no. He was off by then. And he was _done._ I mean, when you know you've only got a few months to live anyway, you want to get clean as soon as possible. He had a daughter he wanted to reconnect with, be a dad and shit. Still in high school."

"Wait, hold up," Jessica said, glancing around for the mission director. How long had she been gone? She noticed two individuals hanging around the shifty-looking fellow, but that was it. She chewed her lip, returning her attention to Juan. "What did he have? HIV?"

"Nah, nothing like that. It was some genetic shit, I think. Something hard to pronounce. His ex-wife called it justice for what he'd done to her, abandoning them for the needle. Whatever he had was eating him up pretty bad, especially after using for a decade."

"Sounds bad. What was it doing to him, exactly?" Symptoms would be helpful to figuring out what it was.

"Shutting his organs down. I don't know. It just seemed unfair, you know?" Juan took another drag, his face in a grimace. "You work hard to get clean, hoping to do something with your life, but he was already dying. He was going to get clean then spend the rest of his time with his daughter, Joey. She hadn't seen him in a while."

"Joey?"

"Jocelyn. He'd sometimes head over to her school on 28th just to watch her when her mom picked her up, but he never said hi." Juan grinned again. "I've never seen her in person, but he used to carry around a picture of her from grade school in his wallet." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a leather wallet of his own. With his cigarette hanging out of his mouth, he flashed her a photo. "This one's mine: Alma. She's almost twenty now, but I'm thinking after I get out of this place…," he trailed off as he put the photo away. "Lucky inspired me, I guess."

Jessica felt something constrict in her chest. She couldn't help it; her eyes drifted to the man in the clichéd trench at the back of the alley. She could practically hear Malcolm's voice in her head. It was like a reminder that she should be doing something _good_ for once, overtly and not just because someone knocked on her door and offered to pay her for it. Or because she couldn't sleep knowing someone was out there stabbing random people in the throat. Or because she resented that her favorite scarf was now stained with blood.

She groaned to herself.

"Good luck, Juan. I hope you see your kid soon."

Just as she was making her way back into the building, the director was walking angrily up to her.

"Where have you been? During dinnertime we need all hands on deck."

Jessica tapped her foot. Her hair flooded over her shoulder in black waves as she glanced behind her, to the man in the coat, strolling back inside.

"What?"' he asked. She seemed to chew on a thought, wrestle with it for a moment. Then:

"That guy, the one in the black trench that looks like it hasn't been washed in a month or four."

"What about him?"

Jessica began to walk toward the exit as she threw over her shoulder, "Check his pockets."

III

His hands were sore. He should go home. But, again, again, as had happened to often as of late…he sensed her. In the pitch darkness of Hell's Kitchen, on a lesser-travelled side-street, a woman walked. And the Devil, drawn to the darkness within as without, followed. _.._

IV

Jessica Jones was not afraid to walk home alone, for obvious reasons. She had the superpowers to back her up if she was in a corner. And, as a P.I., she was keen enough to know when she was being followed because she did her own fair share of it for a living. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Something moved in her peripheral vision, high up on a ledge. It was too late for this shit—not because she was afraid of being alone in the darkness, mind, but because she was missing her whisky.

She bunched the bright-orange _Help the Helples!_ shirt in her right hand and slowed down, making a quick turn into an alleyway.

Walking toward the back, she slowed her gait, then came to a full stop.

"Show yourself, asshole." Nothing replied from the darkness.

Jessica turned to the opening of the alleyway, streetlight flooding the brick walls but not reaching where she stood, bathed in black. Then, up above her, she saw something move.

Someone was hiding on the roof. _Wait—someone is_ _ **jumping**_ _from roof to roof to follow me? Fuck, it_ _ **is**_ _a gymnast._ Jess wasn't sure that was much better than a vampire.

"You gonna stab me with your needle, or what?" She tightened her fist around the shirt. "Come and get me, fucker."

V

The sound of the shirt's threads straining against her fist reached his ears. She was pugnacious, wasn't she? Matt liked it.

He was glad he'd chosen to wear the Devil uniform tonight, if he was going to answer her question. Though, to be fair, he'd had to in order to interrogate John Clover's former drug dealer. And, if the mission T-shirt she had gripped in her hand was anything to go by (it smelled _very_ strongly of cigarettes and soup) then she had done her own investigating earlier tonight. It wasn't surprising they'd crossed paths; they'd been in the same part of town, talking to the same people. But he was at least honest enough to admit to himself that there was almost no reason for him to be _following her home_. He cleared his throat, high up above her. She deserved to feel safe, to know he wasn't the murderer.

"We're fighting the same fight," he replied lowly, gruffly. He stood, the red uniform dark as a shadow in the New York night.

VI

The figure that rose to full height on the legdge was hard to see, thanks to the streetlight behind him. He was nothing more than a silhouette standing high above her, a dark shadow. She considered jumping up there to give him a piece of her mind, but then she noticed two horns on the silhouette's forehead.

 _The fucking_ _ **Devil of Hell's Kitchen?**_ It made sense. Of course the vigilante would go after the syringe killer; at least that solved part of the mystery. She released the breath she'd been holding and loosened her hold on the shirt, which was probably twisted beyond repair at this point."I'm not fighting _any_ fight. I'm walking home, creep. And aren't you supposed to be retired or something?" She heard him choke on surprise. She watched as he shook his head as if to clear it.

Matt stopped himself from arguing with her. At the very least, this _Jessica_ realized he was the local masked vigilante and not some killer. He backed away from the ledge, taking a final inhale of her whisky aura.

"Have a good night, ma'am."

"I'd have a better night without having to deal with your shit," she called after him. He didn't answer.

Jessica threw the stained, stretched shirt into the dumpster in the alley before she continued home, desperate for a drink.

Matt, on the other hand, found himself charmed. And even his mask couldn't hide his smile.

VII

The door still read "Ben Urich, Reporter." Karen liked it that way. Her editor had offered to get her name put up—in fact, he'd nearly insisted—but Karen had been adamant that Ben's name remain on the door. She said it kept his spirit alive—that so long as his name was on the door, even if her name was on a placard on her desk, she would be reminded every day to fight for the truth the same way he would have. "I haven't _earned_ this office yet," she'd told her editor. "I can put my name up when I have."

So, Ben Urich's name was still on the door as, late at night, a lonely visitor knocked.

Karen woke with a start. Her blonde hair was tangled under her face and had very likely left an interesting imprint on her skin. The computer screen had gone black with sleep mode, her coffee had long cooled. She blinked, the light on her desk too bright for her over-sensitive eyes, and peered over her computer at the door, where a man-shaped shadow was cast through the glass.

She eyed her drawer. It was illegal and she knew it, but she kept a gun on her at all times. Tonight was no exception. Karen carefully, quietly rolled it open and let her hand hover there.

"Come in," she called, voice scratchy.

The knob turned, allowing entrance to a tall man in a cheap suit.

"How did you get in?"

"Ben let me keep a key, just in case."

Karen couldn't hide her surprise. "You knew Ben?"

The man nodded. His eyes were deep-set in his face, making it harder for Karen to read him, but something passed over his expression when he glanced back at the door. "You left his name up."

"It seemed respectful," she replied quietly.

He nodded a second time. "Listen," he said, "I would have given this story to Ben a while ago if he were still around. I don't know you, but…" She waited as he seemed to search for what he was trying to say. "But," he continued, "I heard that you were trying to carry his torch." The man paused, his dark eyes searching hers. "Miss Page, have you been looking into a defunct chemical company by the name of KemmCorps?"

Her eyes widened. "Yes. I—I've been trying to determine if it tested on its employees," she began rifling through her documents, searching for the notes from several interviews with sources, "Several individuals told me…," she trailed off, still half-awake, eyes bleary.

"And the public."

She came to a dead stop, her head down. Her eyes rolled up to meet his. "They polluted the _public?_ " She swallowed, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Who _are_ you?"

The stoic man chose not to answer her question. Instead, he said: "I have a lead for you."

VIII

At the same time as Karen Page was getting an unusual visit, Trish Walker was waking up on an emergency room bed. Again.

"Miss Walker? Miss Walker, can you hear me?"

The light hurt like bitch. She could hear everything. The entire floor was loud (as E.R.s are wont to be) but her hypersensitive state made it seem as if the volume had been kicked up to full-blast. She groaned.

"I'll take that as a yes," the doctor responded, scratching something down on her chart. "I see this is the third time in a week."

"Yes," Trish responded. "I, um," she struggled to sit up, "I was coming home from a kickboxing class when I got another migraine. I had to pull over."

The doctor shot her a look of pity, but Trish missed it. She was still too out-of-it to notice much at all.

"Miss Walker…the results of your blood test came back while you were out."

She perked up a bit at that. "You did? What do the results say?"

The doctor pursed her lips and glanced down at her chart. This was her least favorite part of her job.

"Miss Walker," she began, "I'm sorry." Trish's face deflated. "It seems you have a rare genetic neurological disorder. It's weakened your heart and it's attacking your nerves at large." The doctor broke eye contact as she finished: "It has begun to affect the chemical makeup of your brain."


End file.
